In this episode of The Good Cents by Payactiv Podcast, host Eric Rosenberg welcomes Daniella Flores, a side hustle expert and founder of I Like to Dabble, to share her insights on how people can earn at least $400 a month through side hustles. Daniella dives into various side hustles and gig apps, explaining how anyone, regardless of their schedule, can build extra income while improving their financial security. Here are the key takeaways:

• Getting started with gig apps like Rover, Instacart, and Postmates is an easy way to earn money flexibly. These platforms allow people to offer services like pet sitting or grocery delivery, providing an opportunity to make extra income on your terms.
• Many gig apps experience higher demand during holidays and busy seasons. Taking advantage of these periods, when prices surge, can help boost earnings significantly.
• Flipping furniture, collectibles, and home decor found at thrift stores on platforms like Facebook Marketplace is a profitable side hustle. With minimal investment, you can make quick fixes and sell items for a significant profit.
• Apps like Shift Work and Wonolo can help people find temporary or extra shifts in industries like hospitality, allowing workers to pick up additional hours and increase monthly earnings.
• When selling items online, it’s essential to meet buyers in public places to avoid scams and ensure a safe transaction. Being cautious throughout the selling process makes it easier and safer for both parties.

Eric Rosenberg:

This is a friendly reminder that today’s episode is intended for education and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial or legal advice. Hello friends. Welcome back to The Good Cents by Payactiv Podcast. As always, I’m your host Eric Rosenberg, and today’s topic is near and dear to my heart because it’s how I started in my entire career and that’s side hustling. That’s right, I started a little side hustle that grew to a point it became my full-time job. So I’ve always loved side hustles, even going back, as we’ll talk about in a little bit, to when I was a young kid in Cub Scouts, I started what I’d consider my first side hustles.

So today we’re talking about how we could use a side hustle to make at least $400 a month or more. Now if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, if you’re struggling to keep up with the bills or you maybe want to build an emergency fund for the first time, a side hustle could be a great way to do it. And we brought on an expert who is one of my favorite side hustle influencers and one of the most knowledgeable people I know about how to make money on the side, and that’s Daniella Flores from I Like to Dabble. So we’re going to get into this really fun conversation with her and she has some really specific examples of ways she still side hustles to try to make $400 or more every month. Let’s dive in. Okay everyone, I am so excited to be here with Daniella. Welcome to the show.

Daniella Flores:

Hello. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on.

Eric Rosenberg:

So tell us a little bit about how you got into this world of dabbling and getting more engaged with your personal finances.

Daniella Flores:

Oh yeah. So I’ve been kind of doing one-off “side hustles”, gigs as before we learned about the word side hustle, they’re just like gigs, extra jobs, that sort of thing. I’ve been doing that since high school because I have a horrible track record of spending money that I don’t have. So I would have to go and correct myself with extra jobs. But there was a period though in college where I had to work three different jobs for bills that I had at that time. That’s something that when you’re in college you can’t really get around that, and at that time, that’s not me correcting spending mistakes, that’s just me trying to keep up with the inflation of anything that we buy.

So I had started really kind of doubling down on freelancing when I became a web engineer as the first job out of college and I needed to earn extra money for student loans. So I started doing one-off freelance web development projects, and from there it really opened up this world to me because I didn’t know that freelancers could actually make a decent amount of money and do something with that, and I also didn’t realize how it could expand my own career because I can learn these things outside of my job that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s great. Now I definitely had side hustles and I think my first one was in middle school. Actually, my real first one, I was probably, I don’t know if you’d call it a side hustle, at elementary school I sold popcorn and coupon books for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and I made enough from those to pay for my going to camp every summer and any extra went to my other activities, which I was really cool paying my way when I was younger and then it became a necessity as I got older because no one’s paying for me now.

Daniella Flores:

Yeah. Oh my God, I never thought about that. So I was in Girl Scouts, so I did the Girl Scout cookie thing. It paid for us to go to camp and I never thought about that actually being earning money.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, it was your first side hustle. There you go.

Daniella Flores:

Yeah, exactly, it was. Going door to door with some cookies.

Eric Rosenberg:

Well, let’s jump forward a little bit from our youth. Nowadays, and we know there’s a lot of people out there struggling paycheck to paycheck, the cost of groceries have gone up, rent has gone up, housing’s gone up. If you have a random car repair or something that could really put you behind, and having an extra even $400 a month or about $100 a week could be absolutely life-changing. And if somebody’s really struggling paycheck to paycheck, having an extra $100 a week might mean you don’t have to take something out of your cart at the grocery store, which nobody wants to go through that. 

So I know you’ve prepared based on all of your different side hustles and the people you’ve met over the years, you have some ideas that could help someone even if they don’t have a ton of extra time, if they have a little bit of time they could put into it, they might be able to come up with about $25 a day, $100 a week, $400 a month, I know those numbers don’t exactly add up, but that’s kind of the direction we’re trying to get. So let’s dive in. What’s your first idea, your first suggestion for someone who wants to make that extra $400 a month? 

Daniella Flores:

So when I think about extra $400 a month and everybody’s schedules are kind of already packed and it’s hard to find remote side hustle examples that would be good for somebody who doesn’t have a lot of time. For freelancing, it takes some time to kind of make a portfolio, reach out to clients and get somewhere with that, even though freelancing is a great way to make money. But to start somewhere, I’m going to talk about gig apps. I know there’s kind of a mixed reaction to gig apps because some of them are very low paying and some of them are not. There’s also ones that people have never heard of before and there’s a gig app actually out there kind of for everybody now. Some of them that I’ve worked on is Rover. I do love Rover. Some of the gigs on Rover though will take more time, like doing drop ins and walking dogs takes more time.

But pet sitting, if you’re pet sitting at someone else’s home or pet sitting in your own home, that was a great way for me to make extra money while I was working from home, like my remote job, which is great. The only actual requirement you need for a Rover is to be 18 of age and driver’s license and then pass a background check. It’s a very general simple background check. They’re not going to look at your driving records or anything like that like they would for DoorDash. So some of the people out there if you don’t drive or any of those things, Rover is kind of a good one if you want to go pet sitting. Meowtel is another one. Wag! is great. 

If I’m thinking other people that you commute a lot to and from work and you probably don’t have time to do that, I love Instacart, so I’m a huge Instacart user, which I’ve been trying to use less now to save money. I have some friends who both do driving and shopping for Instacart. You have two different options as an Instacart independent worker is you can do an Instacart driver, which is the full shopping and driving to deliver, and Instacart’s pretty great for tips because the app kind of sets up the person to accidentally tip too much, which I’ve done before. So that’s just a little tidbit for people. 

Or it could be an in-store shopper. So at our grocery store I can do Instacart and put my order in and then go pick it up with my grocery store and it’s no additional charge for me, but that shopper gets my tip, which is pretty cool. That extra charge of the tip is mine, but I don’t have to spend an hour kind of battling the crowds at the grocery store to get my food that night. Sometimes we go to the grocery store a lot because I like to buy the fresh food and make it that day. That’s a really great option for folks doing that, and you can do a lot of orders at the same time. So you can go to the grocery store, one trip, do five, and then you have five people’s tips too.

A lot of grocery store orders are over $100. Yeah, this is the 2024. A lot of our meals are $100. So if you just add those tips up together, one day of doing a couple really can add up throughout the month and you also get paid from the app. You don’t only make tips. It’s of course not going to be like a $20 an hour plus tips job. It’s going to depend on the orders you take and how fast they are, how large they are, stuff like that. So I mean, there’s a ton of other apps that are like that. Postmates is a good catch-all app where you can do grocery shopping on it too or you could do delivery from restaurants. 

And there’s also ones Pickup from Walgreens, which I’ve used before too, and that’s a really good one. Ride-share apps are great if you’re somebody who wants to put in that amount of time and effort. I think ride-sharing takes a lot more effort than other gig apps because you are doing a lot of back and forth. There’s a lot more demand it seems. You’re doing a lot of social interaction, a lot of wear and tear on your car that you don’t necessarily have to do if you’re delivering groceries or similar actions to that where you’re kind of doing a bunch of stuff at one time and then taking one trip to take all that.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. I have a friend who does some ride-share driving, but he only does it when he knows it’s going to be a surge pricing kind of period. So he’ll go after a big football game or a big concert and drive people from there, and he only does that a couple times a week and when he has time kind of a thing. But that extra flexibility, he knows for each hour he puts in, he’s going to make a lot more than just you’re hanging out on a weekday afternoon if he’s not at work trying to pick up a few dollars. It probably would only be a few dollars versus after that big sports event or concert or something.

Daniella Flores:

And right now for holidays, for instance, something like Instacart and the pet sitting apps, actually a lot of apps that need help because it’s the holidays and we have no time to do anything anyway, you have someone go and pick up your food for you or you have somebody to do your dog sitting or cat sitting while you go to your hometown to visit your family or something.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. And if you do an overnight with Rover or a pet sitting app, it’s also like a little vacation that you get paid for. You can stay at someone else’s house and relax, enjoy their couch, things like that that it feels like a little getaway.

Daniella Flores:

Oh yeah, it is a little getaway. I’ve seen some nice houses doing it. The last one I did was a nice house near us and it was a German Shepherd puppy, which is really cute, but I didn’t sleep in their bed just because it’s weird. She said I could, but I slept on the couch. I woke up and the German Shepherd is just sitting staring right in my face over me and I’m like, “Oh my God.” It’s so cute though. We get to meet a lot of cute fur babies like that.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that’s awesome. So gig apps, you were saying there’s a lot of different options out there. There’s probably something for everyone. You don’t have to drive people around. There’s other things you can do. And I like talking about the groceries, especially around Thanksgiving or New Year’s or anytime someone’s going to be gathering, there’s probably going to be bigger orders and a lot of those last minute, “Oh, I need these groceries,” they’ll tip a little extra I bet for that.

Daniella Flores:

Right. And I’ve found gig apps recently that I didn’t even know existed. For people that want some quick part-time work where you don’t need to go and sign up on a gig app and then do these gigs, but let’s say you are a hospitality worker, there is Shift Work is one where you can quickly go look for extra shifts that weekend for servers or bartenders. And another one is Wonolo. So Wonolo is another one where you can find some temporary work for people that maybe want to still do the same work they do now, but just get more hours in it.

Eric Rosenberg:

Oh, that’s great. Yeah. So let’s switch gears a little. Let’s say someone has exhausted their gig app experience or they just want to try something a little different. I know you’ve tried so many different things out there to make money. What’s another one you like that might help someone make an extra $400 a month?

Daniella Flores:

Okay, so this one I’ve done for a long time. I love thrift stores, and people might have mixed reactions to the thrift store flipping world just because thrift stores are a place where we can go and get cheap stuff, things that we don’t want to pay full price somewhere. And those stores are really beneficial for people that really need those things. But at the same time, their stores can be used by anybody for any reason. And I like to go to thrift stores just to look for furniture and decor items, and then if I find something that I know is on demand, just like my interest in furniture and I love Facebook Marketplace, so I’ll find something and be like, “Oh, I can quickly sell this for 40, 50 bucks.”

I did that with little things like nightstands, collectibles, any antique looking things that you’ll see at the thrift store, you can kind of tell. That works well with furniture, decor and collectibles the most. Stay away from clothes and shoes and things like that. Electronics are also great. I used to fix and resell PlayStations, but I did this on Craigslist and it wasn’t probably a safe option. I was lucky and didn’t have to meet any sketchy people, but the sketchy people are out there with Facebook Marketplace too, but I never have them come in my home. I always set things outside and quickly do the cash exchange or you can do Venmo and just set it outside and they’ll come pick it up.

And a lot of times you don’t have to do anything to the stuff you buy because you can buy something like a cute tiny nightstand at a thrift store for $10, but you realize, “Oh, this is solid wood, this has cute detail on the sides.” You can’t buy stuff like that at stores anymore and people want more unique furniture so they go on Facebook Marketplace. Sure, people look up Facebook marketplace for cheaper things too, but if you got it for $10, you can resell it for $50, you have $40 right there and then you can try to figure out how to do these little things throughout your schedule throughout that month to earn some extra money.

That’s just one example. They also have flea markets is another great thing to do. There’s another option to resell this stuff on eBay, but I think Facebook Marketplace is just a whole lot quicker and it’s so locally used. Our stuff on eBay takes a longer amount of time to get some traction versus Facebook Marketplace.

Eric Rosenberg:

That makes sense. When I’ve done some Facebook Marketplace sales for safety, I try to meet someone in front of the coffee shop that’s half a mile from my house. I go during business hours, during the daytime. So when I meet with the person, we’re in public and in a nice safe place, unless it’s a really heavy big thing. I guess if I were selling furniture that I might have them come by, but electronics, anything that I could fit in my trunk easily, try to meet them in a public spot.

Daniella Flores:

I used to go to Walmart all the time just because Walmart has a giant illuminated parking lot. That would be where I would go. The furniture, I don’t try to do anything big. We don’t really do anything that– we try to refinish wood or do anything like that. It just kind of one-off things for extra money. My wife has this kind of guitar session, but she used to buy guitars off of eBay or other websites or things she found and then do some work to them to kind of fix them up and then resell them on eBay. She did that for a while and it was pretty good money, but it takes some time. So for folks out there, you don’t need to go and flip guitars online. Just as kind of an example, if you have an interest in something and you want to explore it more, you can make some money doing that.

Eric Rosenberg:

This reminded me… once upon a time I was at a personal finance meetup I think when I lived in Portland, and I met a guy who– this was his full living– was going to thrift stores and buying and reselling things and he got really good at knowing what was collectible, what was most likely to get a big return, what he was probably not going to be able to sell, figure all that out. He told me one time he found his best one was an antique mining sign. It was like a safety sign from deep inside of an old mine and he said he made thousands of percents. He got it for 50 cents and sold it for hundreds of dollars. So you never know. You might find one of those gems, you might find a Picasso.

Daniella Flores:

Right? You never know. There’s a lot of good stuff in thrift stores.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. So we have time for one more. What’s one more favorite way to make $400 on the side?

Daniella Flores:

So I would want to go to freelancing, but not everybody has a way to freelance with the skills they use in their job. It’s kind of harder to find freelance work like that. I would turn to one-off options. I mean, of course, if you do have a skill at your job that you would like to find extra work outside of. Save some of your samples that you’re at least able to share and then put it in a Google Drive just for a really quick portfolio to send someone to. Make sure your friends and family know what you do for a living, like websites for example. If someone knows you know how to make a website, they probably need a website for something, they’re going to go to you first, so they don’t want some stranger doing it, just for a real quick tidbit out there for something like that.

So one-off examples. I know online surveys are not the best, do not actually go to most of them. They’re kind of a waste of your time. But there are some that are worth your time, Mindswarms. However, I’ve only gotten two things through Mindswarms, but it’s the one that paid the most of $50 per survey. But you have to get picked of course for the survey. You fill out the questionnaire, but it’s something if you want to try it, you can. Just know that it’s not going to be something that you can really rely on.

Eric Rosenberg:

I know focus groups could be another good one. I have a friend who runs the site, focusgroups.org.

Daniella Flores:

I was going to say that because I-

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah?

Daniella Flores:

Yeah, I was just going to say that website, I recently found it and I was like, “Oh, this is a good one.” So you know that person?

Eric Rosenberg:

I’m friends with the guy who runs it. Yeah.

Daniella Flores:

Oh my God. Well, that’s pretty cool. Yeah, focus groups are great and in-person focus groups are great too. I feel like there are more opportunities for in-person ones and easier to get into them because people don’t have time to go to in-person focus groups.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. Those I know work best if you’re in a big city. You’re not going to find where I live, it’s a smaller city, we don’t really have a lot of focus groups, but if I’m willing to drive a couple hours down to LA, that’s a big city. There’s going to be a lot going on there.

Daniella Flores:

Yeah, same here. Seattle is where we’re next to, but we live a bit of a ways away from it. Two other things are online research studies or user testing. So usertesting.com, it’s going to be a little saturated but you can see what you can get through it. Another one is Userfeel. I have Userfeel downloaded on my computer, and the only thing is with it, the jobs that come available are just not as often as like usertesting.com. For research studies, Respondent is great, especially because you can filter by the stuff you’re interested in or what you do for work. 

So as a software engineer, I got a lot of requests to fill out applications for just looking at a software and giving feedback on it. One was a credit card checkout basically flow that I did for $25, but those are also getting more saturated. The ones that I apply to, I only get maybe one or two back and it takes kind of a while to get the notification that, “Hey, you can do this one and you can move forward with it,” but the pay is pretty quick. That’s just another one is kind of a one-off option out there.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s great. Something I like just about everything you’ve shared today is they’re not something that you have to go all in on just that and ignore all the others. You could do a little bit of grocery delivery, a few online things like app testing or focus groups. You can maybe dog sit once a month. You can do all sorts of different things and piece it together, and if you make $100 here and $100 there, before you know it, you’ve hit that $400 goal or maybe more. Who knows? It’s always fun to see where things can go, but you got to start somewhere. That first dollar is always the hardest. So I know you have an awesome online presence. Could you share where our listeners could come find you if they want to learn more?

Daniella Flores:

Yes, you can find me at iliketodabble.com and I have a free side hustle quiz on the landing page that you can take or you can find me anywhere on social media as I Like to Dabble or I Like to Dabble Blog.

Eric Rosenberg:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today and sharing your fun ideas. Listeners, I hope you go out there and take advantage and make a few bucks. Let us know on Instagram or any of our other socials what you did from this episode and how much you made. If you’re willing to share, that’d be awesome. So thank you so much, Daniella.

Daniella Flores:

Thank you.

Eric Rosenberg:

Well, I hope you thought that one was fun. I learned a lot and I’m inspired. I might even go walk a couple dogs and see if I can make a little extra money for my family to help cover our bills in our expensive area. So thank you Daniella so much for sharing your time and expertise with us. Remember, when you use any gig app or side hustle app, a lot of them ask you to put in a bank account to get your direct deposit when you get your payouts, and of course you can use your Payactiv account in that way. If you set up Payactiv, if you don’t have it already, make sure to check out the Payactiv app on Android or iPhone devices and you can get a routing number and account number that works a lot like a bank account number and you can deposit your extra earnings right there into Payactiv.

And once it’s there, you can use the Payactiv Visa® Card* to make purchases or you can save part of that extra income in a dedicated savings¹ bucket up to $10,000, which we love as one of the best ways to start an emergency fund and get out of that paycheck to paycheck cycle so many of us are in. So again, check out, Payactiv on the app store for your device and make sure to follow us on social media too or on Instagram or on YouTube and we’d love to connect with you and hear from you there. That is all we have for this time. Thank you so much for sticking around till the end, and until next time, keep living the life you’ve earned. 

¹Goal-based saving is a set-aside account, and you will not receive interest or other earnings on the funds within the goal-based account.

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